In this paper, we abandon the stylized median voter and study (i) how distributional tensions can act in many different ways depending on social affinity and on the prospect of upward or downward mobility of the different income classes, (ii) income distribution dynamics, intergenerational...

Trade liberalization has proceeded on the assumption that eventual aggregate welfare gains will exceed the losses. While compensatory mechanisms exist in most countries, they tend to be underfunded and ineffective. To begin to address this problem, the direct beneficiaries from trade...

We show that the Brazilian trade liberalization in the early 1990s led to a permanent relative decline in the vote share of left-wing presidential candidates in the regions more affected by the tariff cuts. This happened even though the shock, implemented by a right-wing party, induced a...

This paper examines the effects of a unilateral reform of the redistribution policy in an economy open to international trade. We set up a general equilibrium trade model with heterogeneous agents allowing for country asymmetries. We show that under international trade compared to autarky, a...

We study the equilibrium determinants of firm-level heterogeneity in a model in which firms can affect the variance of their productivity draws at the entry stage and explore the implications in closed and open economy. By allowing firms to choose the size of their investment in innovation...

The emergence of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a great economic power has stimulated an epochal shift in patterns of world trade, accompanied by a remarkable level of internal migration within the country. Hundreds of millions of Chinese workers have moved from inland areas to coastal...

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the WTO, this paper re-estimates the impact of WTO accession on growth. Joining the multilateral trading system not only expands access to international markets but also requires commitment to domestic reforms. Tang and Wei (2009) showed that there is...